Book Review | The Last Hundred Days

The Last Hundred Years by Patrick McGuinness is about the end of the Ceausescu regime in Romania and about the people who were involved directly or indirectly with the downfall of the system. Revolutions are very topical subjects at the moment. We have just seen the end of brutal regimes in North Africa, and in all probability we will soon be seeing a stream of literature on the so-called Arab Spring. Writers will surely deal with the fall of these corrupt regimes; each tackling the subject from different viewpoints.

McGuinness lived in Bucharest as a student and left the country in early 1988, missing the collapse by 18 months. He felt cheated that he was not there for the grand finale. In an interview he is quoted as saying: "I felt I should have been there. So I imagined myself there during the last hundred days of communism."

The novel is not intended to be a historical record, because the author's emphasis is on the characters and their individual stories. However it also shows what life was like during this period just before Ceausescu's downfall. Offered a post in a university, a young Englishman gets embroiled into the complicities of the dictatorship. He falls in love with the daughter of a prominent party member and gets involved with human smuggling.

At the university, he befriends another British academic - Leo, a wheeler-dealer who is making the most of the situation - and gets to know Trofim, whom he helps to write in secret a book on the regime's corruption. Leo is also writing a travel guide on the cultural gems of old Bucharest, fast disappearing under the grandiose architectural schemes of Ceausescu. Bucharest was once called 'The Paris of the East', described as a mix of Paris and Istanbul.

But Ceausescu destroyed large parts of the city's cultural heritage to make way for his Socialist city and the construction of the Palace of the People. Leo is trying to revive the old city by using old maps from the 1890s and the 1920s in an attempt to raise it from the ruins. The book, to be called The City of Lost Walks, is also an elegy on the city's gradual decay. McGuinness' original title for the book was meant to be The City of Lost Walks before it was changed to the present The Last Hundred Days. So the author incorporated the title into his narrative. Patrick McGuinness is a professor of French and Comparative Literature at Oxford University, and lives in Wales. This is his first novel, but he has published award winning collections of poetry.

It is evident that the author is also a poet, for the novel is beautifully written, and often lyrical, despite his harsh depiction of brutal scenes. It is full of rich imagery and many witty and brilliant observations, too many to quote here. And yet, with harsh realism, he captures the sordid, decaying and brutal way of life in 1989 which is brought to a head with the deaths of the Ceaucescus in front of the TV cameras. We see a country run on self-interest, duplicity and fear. The political agitators are for real. Nothing is what it seems. Everyone and everything is to be questioned. Whole villages are destroyed, including old churches and monasteries; the populace is destitute while party members and their families luxuriate in the good life.

This is a novel about a revolution and the fall of tyrants.  When the end comes for the Ceausescus it is both brutal and surreal. I remember watching the shooting on TV and the feeling I got was one of nausea and a sense of indecent voyeurism, the same feeling that was evoked on seeing the killing of Gaddafi and his bloodied corpse on TV. There are parallel lines between these tyrants. It is recorded that Elena Ceausescu, before being shot, said: "The people love us... the people love us and will not permit this outrage".

This surreal atmosphere is also present about the goings-on of the young narrator and the company he keeps. This will probably upset readers who, misled by the title of the book, will be looking for a realistic chronicle of the period. It will be best appreciated if it is accepted as a fictional novel written by a poet who, having lived in Romania on the brink of the revolution, offers deep insight into the country and its people.

The novel was on last year's longlist for the Man Booker Prize and on the shortlist for the prestigious Costa Award.